Editor Spotlight

Angus MacDonald III, PhD, is a clinical cognitive neuroscientist and a clinical psychologist at the University of Minnesota.

He was trained at the University of Pittsburgh and attended Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic for his internship and post-doctoral fellowship.

Dr. MacDonald began as an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota in 2003 in Minneapolis where he grew up.

Tell us a bit about your background: What is your area of research? What is your most recent journal-editing experience?

My laboratory at the University of Minnesota explores basic cognitive and affective neuroscience, the biological bases of psychopathology, and the measurement of individual and group differences.

I use fMRI, behavioral genetics, traditional clinical assessments, and experimental cognitive testing. We focus on understanding how executive control mechanisms modulate attention, affective processing, social interactions and decision-making. We also evaluate how these mechanisms inform us about the genetic and environmental causes of psychoses and impulse control disorders, and develop methods to explore the relationships between brain function, cognition, and impairments in these processes.

I began as a consulting editor with the Journal in 2005, and I became an associate editor in 2011. I also serve on the editorial board of Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging and have served as a guest editor for Schizophrenia Bulletin.

Briefly, what are your main priorities? For example, how will you grow readership, what type of scholarship would you like to see in the journal, and what kind of content are you hoping to attract?

• Mechanisms of Psychopathology. While continuing to publish the best, highest impact abnormal psychological research, one priority will be to link the Journal's overarching dimensional and translational vision of psychopathology to underlying cognitive, affective and biological mechanisms.
• Computational Approaches. Related to the above, the Journal strives to become an outlet for research that uses computational models to establish theory and test predictions. An important editorial goal will be to attract this kind of work and include computational modeling expertise on the editorial board.
• Psychopathology Methodology. The Journal now has pages set aside each issue for articles on the tools of psychopathology. I hope to continue this emphasis on engagement between different data analytic approaches. If the Journal is to play an important role in the development of nosology and psychopathology measurement, it must also publish on the statistical exegesis of data: how should we best understand our data and when should we adopt one approach rather than another?
• Training Psychopathologists. The Journal should be an outlet for examining our own ideas about psychopathology research, and in particular its importance in graduate training. The Journal can bring together voices from accrediting bodies, the scientific community, and organizations that promote psychopathology research to address questions about the role of this kind of science in students' training. We can also provide support for graduate students who want to become clinical scientists by attracting and fast-tracking evaluation of student-initiated submissions.

Why is this journal important for the field? What is its relevance to society/public health? What are the hot issues in your area right now?

For much of its 110-year history, the Journal of Abnormal Psychology (and the Journal of Abnormal Psychology and Social Psychology before it) has been overshadowed by a medical model of mental illness that could safely ignore the contributions of experimental psychopathologists, psychometricians and methodologists.

However the field has gradually come to recognize the central vision of the Journal: that vulnerabilities to mental illness are widely distributed in the population, and that our personalities, cognitive abilities and other psychological traits reflect these vulnerabilities. While this understanding of psychopathology dates back decades, a turning point came in 2009 when the National Institute of Mental Health initiated the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) and these truths were codified.

The Journal should be a leading voice in this evolving conversation about mental illness. As a participant in RDoC workshops and its predecessor's, I have been working with NIMH and within the Journal to improve this conversation since I began as an associate editor in 2011.

In the coming years the Journal must have a central role in the development of a dimensional and translational vision of psychopathology.

Do you have plans for a special issue or changes to the editorial process? Are you making any changes?

In the past several years special sections have become an important part of the Journal's work in shaping modern psychopathology. I will continue Sherryl Goodman's efforts in this regard.

I will be proposing changes to the editorial process as well. The Journal has not typically encouraged review articles. Comprehensive reviews with a strong theoretical context and empirical support should be encouraged, as should be computational models of psychopathology.

At the same time, the role of the extended format is undergoing scrutiny to determine ways to maximize this format's benefits for authors and readers.

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